Samoa 3, American Samoa 2

“I think there was one half of an excellent performance from our side,” said coach Larry Mana’o. “The other half I think we gave up a little more than we intended to but I think it was all first game jitters for a lot of these guys.“Some of the older players tried to settle them but it was a little difficult at first.”Desmond Faaiuaso, Faitalia Hamilton-Pama and Andrew Mobberly scored in the fourth, 18th and 26th minute to take a commanding 3-0 lead in the first half.American Samoa was disjointed with its play in the first 30 minutes of the first half but they slowly shook off the jitters, and Frankie Beauchamp answered for them to make it 3-1.Beauchamp scored again in the second half to complete the game’s finally tally as Samoa won 3-2 despite playing with only 10 men in the last 20 minutes of the game due to a red card against them.It took Beauchamp only one game to tie the all-time record for international goals for American Samoa, tying current captain Ramin Ott and Shalom Luani. Luani scored twice in 2011 in separate games while Ott scored in 2007 and 2011.“It was a good second half, they were a little more determined but just a bit unlucky,” Mana’o said.The Cook Islands also won in the earlier match with a 3-0 showing against hosts Tonga, putting them and Samoa in the driver’s seat for the tournament.American Samoa next plays Tonga on Sept. 2 (Sept. 1, A.S. time) at 3:30 p.m.

About FFAS

A territory with just 70,000 people and an area of 199km², American Samoa is traditionally strong in sports such as gridiron, basketball and baseball but football is starting to take over these popular pastimes. The strength of the game is at the youth level where Football Federation American Samoa (FFAS) has worked hard to establish competitions within schools. Under the tutelage of President Iuli Alex Godinet.